The Adventure in Progress

The adventure has encompassed civil engineering, software for the Accounting Profession throughout the English speaking world, and now Caribbean blockchain initiatives, while experiencing life in 9 countries with many ups and downs in both business and love (4 wives) along the way.

After starting professional life as a civil engineer in Australia with the Brisbane City Council in 1966, my serious computing started in Namibia, Africa, in 1969 with the mathematical modelling of a large river basin using 100 years of rainfall data. To get the job done on the computer available, an ICT 1500, I had to get into the guts of the Fortran compiler - great fun.

After a period back in Australia working with a consulting civil engineering firm, I decided that the computing was more interesting than the engineering, and so started Hartley Computer in 1974, to develop software for the Accounting Profession, as Accountants needed computing but were not into doing it themselves as engineers then tended to be. My colleagues and I developed HAPAS (HArtley Professional Accountants’ System and SHEILA (System by Hartley for Entirely Integrated Ledger Accounting), plus associated systems, ultimately including hardware (the 3900) and operating system too - RT86, a true pre-emptive multi user multi tasking operating system for the 8086 chip, launched in 1980, 15 years before Windows PCs had that capability.

Hartley Computer was one of the first mini/PC computer vertical market successes in the world, with ultimately 250 staff and 3,000 sites in 7 countries. In the process I became known as “the father of computer client accounting”, and we won several awards. The success was killed by hubris and a messy divorce. Big lessons, only partly learned at the time.

Then from 1985 there was Banksia Information Technology (BIT) in Hong Kong which designed and manufactured IT gear (PCs, modems, and the a voice activated fax/phone switch we called PHAXswitch), and more design awards...

And so to the UK in 1993 via Australia and New Zealand, with HAPAS Mark II, named Hartley.Accountant. By 1998, my partners and I in Hartley Computer UK had gained 1,000 Accounting Practice Clients ranging from sole practitioners to PricewaterhouseCoopers.

But in 1999, my then new fourth wife Caramia was diagnosed with Primary Progressive Multiple Sclerosis (PPMS). My partners and I sold Hartley Computer to Sage PLC, so that Caramia and I could move to sunnier Antigua in the Caribbean, which Caramia thought would help her by boosting Vitamin D production, as it did. Caramia was far ahead of the medical profession about the importance of Vitamin D for health generally, and especially for people with MS. She successfully fought the MS, defying the UK doctors' prediction of death within 10 years, only to die from cancer in 2015 in Antigua, after 16 years.

The adventure included a wonderful couple of years in Panama, a period back in Australia at Port Douglas that involved some messing around with forex, MT4 development, and the start of blockchain study, followed by a return to the Caribbean which I had grown to love, initially Antigua and Barbuda, now Saint Lucia, for formal blockchain study (back to school at 72!), and to pursue new blockchain ventures.

A necessary part of the plans is staying fit and healthy for a long time, involving eating well (much less sugar and carbs, more good fats), intermittent fasting, exercising, sun for Vitamin D, taking my supplements (no meds, NO doctors), and taking advantage of the extreme life extension options becoming available thanks to the fantastic longevity advances in progress, in order to be able to stay the course to see the projects through to completion in a fit and healthy state.

Pacio

The new venture is a blockchain startup named Pacio, with Keith Cleland and Trevor Watters joining me as founders.

The Pacio Vision is to provide better accounting, transaction processing, and management systems to help people and entities share in the benefits of the dawning blockchain era.

Cryptocurrency, decentralisation, blockchain, distributed ledger, and smart contract technologies provide hope of enormous positive change for business, government, and society, in a "Blockchain Revolution" leading to a safer, lower cost, more inclusive, and more productive semantic web 3.0 future.

By providing the means for apps to easily incorporate the better ways, Pacio can play a key role in helping the world gain the full potential of the revolution in progress.

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As well as Pacio keeping me busy and motivated, every day is exciting with so much of great interest happening in science, economics, and politics with major trend changes in progress as we watch. Yes, we live in very interesting times - long may the adventure continue!

Education

Nudgee State School, Banyo High School, and University of Queensland (B.E. Honours Civil 1966), all in Brisbane, Queensland, Australia.